BYRON SHIRE Council has received 15 submissions for its BioEnergy Project, seeking to utilise cutting edge technology to produce clean energy from biomass waste.
“We now have some very exciting and innovative opportunities on the table and the important thing for the community to understand is that no fuel for the operation of these bioenergy facilities will come from native forests,” Byron Shire Mayor, Simon Richardson said.
The North East Forest Alliance (NEFA), during the EoI process last month, questioned whether fuel for the operation of these bio-energy facilities could come from the burning of trees from native forests.
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Council’s Expression of Interest (EOI) did not include forestry products and has nominated anaerobic digestion as the preferred technology for the bulk of the proposed feedstocks.
“Council is committed to protecting native forests and no material sourced from the logging or clearing of native forests will be used for the proposed bioenergy facilities,” Mayor Richardson said.
“It is intended that a blending of solar farms and bioenergy facilities will supply all of the electricity required to run Council’s sewage treatment plants into the future.
“This bioenergy project is cutting edge thinking and it has the potential to be a model for other small local governments in Australia,” he said.
Depending on the final processes, and as a conservative guide without costing the environmental benefits, Council’s current forecasting is for a payback period of 15-20 years
“Now that we know there is interest in the project the next step is a design and construct tender, which will be released by the middle of 2018, with the aim of potentially generating bioenergy power by 2020,” Acting General Manager, Mark Arnold said.
What are the aims of Council’s Bioenergy Project?
- To responsibly manage wastes that are already generated;
- Reduce Council’s use of grid electricity;
- Maximise the use of recycled water;
- Reduce Council’s greenhouse gas emissions; and
- Produce valuable agricultural biochar that sequesters carbon and benefits the soil.
How does Council plan to achieve these aims?
Byron Shire plans to use recycled water from its sewage treatment plants to grow crops as a feedstock for a gasification or pyrolysis plant.
In addition, Council will invest in new technology at its sewage treatment plants to harvest the gas from the bio-solids, food and grease waste from Byron’s businesses to produce up to 1 megawatt of energy every year.
“This is exciting stuff as it will be enough to power the Shire’s sewage treatment plants with the added benefits of reducing effluent discharged into the environment and removing up to 1000 truck movements per year,” Mr Arnold said.
“We are doing this to maximise the beneficial use of recycled water; maximise the beneficial use of solid waste from the sewage system and minimise the trucks on our roads transporting the Shire’s food oil and grease waste to Lismore,” he said.
For more information about the Bioenergy Project call Council’s Water and Sewer Systems Environment Officer, Bryan Green, on 6685 9322.